Vietnam at the Khmer Frontier: Boundary Politics, 1802–1847

This article addresses the challenging spatial organization of Nguyễn Vietnam: the binary relationship between civilizational expansion and the construction of a state boundary at the Khmer frontier. It examines the process whereby the Vietnamese moved southwest into the Khmer world and territorialized a contested terrain as part of a civilizational and imperial project. The process employed the state’s administrative infrastructure and cultural institutions to erase ethnic, political, and cultural diversity in the lower Mekong. This article argues that Vietnamese expansion was not simply an attempt to carry out the will of heaven and Confucian cultural responsibility; rather, it was a search for peripheral security and a response to regional competition. In fact, the seesawing between civilizational mission and territorial consolidation confused the Nguyễn bureaucracy with regard to Cambodia’s political and cultural status and affected Hue’s frontier management. As a result, the Vietnam-Cambodia boundary was the object of frequent shifts and negotiations. Only after facing Siamese invasion and experiencing fierce Khmer resistance did the Vietnamese court gradually replace its civilizational perspective with a more practical approach to border management, out of which emerged the modern borderline. Keywords: Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam-Cambodia boundary, history of cartography, lower Mekon

Xúc tác trên cơ sở kim loại trong phản ứng epoxy hoá dầu đậu nành

An epoxidation of vegetable oil is an oxidation reaction of double bond in the presence of catalysts, wherein hydrogen peroxide is commonly used as the oxidant. Depending on catalyst, the reaction is carried out via different methods. The conventional epoxidation of vegetable oils catalyzed by liquid inorganic acids have several drawbacks, including: the reaction time is long; it is very difficult to control side reactions; the yield of reaction is relatively low. On the contrary, the reaction using metal-based catalysts can overcome such disadvantages. Those catalysts which based on various metals such as Mo, Ti, Co, Ni, Pt, Fe, and W... are used for the epoxidation of alkenes and fatty esters by many scientists in the world. Some preliminary results on the epoxidation of soybean oil over tungsten-based catalyst have been reported in this paper. The successful epoxidation of the soybean oil was confirmed by the FTIR analysis. The effects of the H2O2 oxidant as well as tungstate concentration on the epoxidation process were investigated by determining the epoxy content of the obtained products. The yield and double bond conversion of the reaction are also studied in order to evaluate the efficiency of the catalyst. After 1 hour of reaction, 90.31÷90.39 % of double bonds was disappeared, 91.14÷91.56 % of which were converted to epoxy groups, therefore the yield of the reaction was between 82.31÷82.76 %. Those results indicated that using the metal-based catalyst was considerably minimized side reactions

Vietnam at the Khmer Frontier: Boundary Politics, 1802–1847

This article addresses the challenging spatial organization of Nguyễn Vietnam: the binary relationship between civilizational expansion and the construction of a state boundary at the Khmer frontier. It examines the process whereby the Vietnamese moved southwest into the Khmer world and territorialized a contested terrain as part of a civilizational and imperial project. The process employed the state’s administrative infrastructure and cultural institutions to erase ethnic, political, and cultural diversity in the lower Mekong. This article argues that Vietnamese expansion was not simply an attempt to carry out the will of heaven and Confucian cultural responsibility; rather, it was a search for peripheral security and a response to regional competition. In fact, the seesawing between civilizational mission and territorial consolidation confused the Nguyễn bureaucracy with regard to Cambodia’s political and cultural status and affected Hue’s frontier management. As a result, the Vietnam-Cambodia boundary was the object of frequent shifts and negotiations. Only after facing Siamese invasion and experiencing fierce Khmer resistance did the Vietnamese court gradually replace its civilizational perspective with a more practical approach to border management, out of which emerged the modern borderline

Climate change and adaptation in Viet Nam: Contributions from Environmental History

International audienc

Climate change and adaptation in Viet Nam: Contributions from Environmental History

International audienc